Programmers' Tools

The site Programmers' Tools is just what it says. It has a category list that includes: basic, C, C++, C#, Java, Programmers editor, version control, debugging and several other items. The list of tools is far from exhaustive but it does contain many of the more popular tools.

Programmers' Tools

The site Programmers' Tools is just what it says. It has a category list that includes: basic, C, C++, C#, Java, Programmers editor, version control, debugging and several other items. The list of tools is far from exhaustive but it does contain many of the more popular tools.

Home PC Firewall Guide

The site Home PC Firewall Guide makes a good case for installing a personal firewall on each of your computers. This site is full of information for protecting your computer on the internet.

The Best in Freeware

Today I discovered Pricelessware. Pricelessware is a list of software collected from the "alt.comp.freeware" newsgroup. It is a list of what people have voted as "the best of the best in Freeware". The list is broken into several categories: Business-Home, Desktop, File Utilities,
Graphics, Organizers, Multimedia, Security, Web Design, Internet, Programming, Text and System Utilities.

What Tech Skills Are Hot For 2006?

ComputerWorld has a posting entitled 'What Tech Skills Are Hot For 2006?' According to the article there are three main tech skills in demand for 2006. The first is developers with Java and .NET skills, second is security experts with IT security certifications and finally Project Managers. It looks like 2006 may be a good to switch jobs and pick up a few dollars in teh process.

Foxit Reader - Free Reader For PDF

Scott Hanselman posted 'The end of Adobe Acrobat - Thank you Foxit.' I just had to give Foxit Reader a try. I have downloaded and installed 'Foxit Reader.' So far I 'Foxit Reader' is a great program. I think I have a new PDF reader for the Windows environment. I am going to need to perform some more testing before I make the switch. So far everything is good.

'Foxit Reader' is a small (about 2.5 Meg) and vary fast PDF reader. I opened a 23 Meg file with Acrobat. It took about 7 seconds to open where 'Foxit Reader' to about a second.

Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Programmers

Phil Chu over at Technicat has posted 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers.' I found the article to be right on the on money. Several of the points line up with my experiences in software development. I think I will make a few changes to my build and testing process based on this article.

Thinking Like A Genius

Over that the site 'Study Guides and Strategies' there is a neat article about 'Thinking Like A Genius.' The article lists eight steps to think like a genuis: find new perspectives, visualize, produce, make novel combinations, make connections, between dissimilar subjects, think in opposites, use metaphorically and prepare for chance.

GMail Mobile

Google has finally released a mobile interface for GMail. The URL for it is http://m.gmail.com. I fired up my Pocket PC and punched in the URL. I can't say that I was impressed. The user interface is lacking in the functionality that I have grown accustom to with the full program. I have done a little programming for the Pocket PC in the past so I understand the limitations for the device and the screen. I was expecting more out of the menus. We will have to wait an see how the interface improves.

FreeMind - Free Mind Mapping Tool

Check out FreeMind, a free mind-mapping tool written in Java so it can be run virtually anywhere. A mind map is a tool for visual thinking, learning, memory and brainstorming. It was during my college days when I was introduced to mind maps. I remember doing a few mind maps but they never really worked for me. It was just recently that mind maps have gotten my attetion. I had a programming issue that kept stumping me. I ended up talking about the problem with a friend. My friend made a quick mind map on a napkin. This has sparked a renewed interest in mind maps.

A quick Google search showed several mind mapping tools are out there. Right now I am trying out FreeMind because it will run in Microsoft Windows and on Linux.

Online Tech Support

A friend of mine has turned me on to 'Online Tech Team (OTT).' OTT is like having your vary own tech support shop. They offer 24x7 availability, worldwide accessibility of the online helpdesk, phone support, email support, web-based remote diagnostics, screen-sharing tools, and chat, support for hardware and software regardless of the brand, Microsoft Windows support, Microsoft Office support, real-time advice, find answers to computer-related questions, check and optimize the performance of your computer. They can even do remote diagnostics and screen sharing. For what I have been told OTT offers a wide range of support plans that range from per incident to yearly subscription.

I know that I spend a good part of my vacation time helping family members with computer issues. I thinking I may start pointing them over to Online Tech Team instead. The three month support plan would make an interesting addition to a new computer and new computer user.

GMail Switcher

Google has released a tool call GMail Switcher. This tool helps you switch from your current email account to your GMail account. The tool helps you imports the contacts, announce your new gmail address, remind people that you switched. You will be able to keep and manage your old email account from within GMail.

Top 20 IT Mistakes

InfoWorld is running an article on the 'The top 20 IT mistakes to avoid.'

I am not going to list the items here but I will hit a couple of the highlights like offshoring, developing web apps on for IE, falling behind on new technology and my personal favorite violating the KISS principle.

Many of the articles I have ready about successful business people and inventors is that making mistakes was a critical element in there development. I have a strange feeling that we will be dealing with these type of mistakes for a long time to come. This list reminds me various business articles that I read 10 years ago. It seems that we are making the same mistakes over and over. Why can't we learn of these mistakes?

Holding A Contest? Here Is How To Get Free Stuff For The Contest

Over at SpottedWalrus there is a blog posting entitled 'Holding a contest: How to get free stuff to give away.' It basically boils down to just asking.

Just For Fun: Write Your Name In Elvish

Today I came across Ned Gulley's Blog Rambles at starchamber.com. One of the most popular posting on Ned's site is 'Write Your Name in Elvish in Ten Minutes.' The tutorial is really simple. This would be an interesting way to sign your email.

Free Pascal

Original: 2005.05.16
Free Pascal (aka FPK Pascal) is a 32 and 64 bit professional Pascal compiler. It is available for different processors: Intel x86, Amd64/x86 64, PowerPC, Sparc. The website also has links to lots a information sources.

Update: 2005.12.15
Free Pascal Compiler Version 2.0.2 was released last week. The whatsnews.txt contains a summary of the changes.

Tectonic has a quick posting about the release entitled 'Free Pascal speeding along.'

Convert Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, PDF Documents To HTML For Free

Over at Digital Inspiration there are insturction on converting doc, xls, ppt, rtf, pdf to HTML for Free. One of the features that GMail offers is the ability to convert various docment styles into HTML.

2006 Small Business Trends

The site 'Small Business Trends' has started its series on 2006 Trends. First up on the block is 'Futurist Watts Wacker’s Trends to Watch in 2006.' Cell phones, Small environmental footprint, Digital life, Global culture and Avocation to vocation are topping Wacker's list. Out of the list Avication to vocation is the item that interests me the most. I really like the idea of turning my hobbies and interest into a job. It will be interesting to see how people going about making jobs out of hobbies. If you are thinking about trying to turn a hobby into a job I would ask you to consider why you love the hobby and what benefits it brings you. If you are using your hobby to escape the pressures of life then I would suggest you keep the hobby as a hobby. I know for my self that the woodworking should always remain a hobby.

Next we have '2006 Workforce Trends by the Herman Group.' Intensifying competition for qualified workers, Gradually increasing attention to employee retention, Increasing investment in older workers, Shift in retirement plans to lifetime lifestyle funding, Continued off-shoring of some work, coupled with return of other work, Larger investment in corporate training, Growth in telecommuting, Expansion of staffing industry, Heightened flexibility in work arrangements, Employer dissatisfaction with product of schools are the hot trends for the new year. It looks like companies will have to put more effort into getting, growing and keeping good employees.

Updated: 2005.12.15
Here are the trends from 'Happy About': Energy, Internet democratization, Increases in Internet marketing, China’s impact on world commerce increases, Outsourcing expands to other sectors, Services play an even larger part in Western economies, mobile commerce expands, VOIP, Employer/employee relationships change, and Security will be on everyone's mind.

The 2006 trends for Microbusiness are: increase in the number microbusiness, energy and information will play a large role in microbusiness, increases in marketing to microbusiness, more business articles will be written about microbusiness, and politicians will take more notice of microbusiness.

Coffee and Soda

Both Coke and Pepis are coming out with coffee-infused drinks. From the Coca-Cola Company we get Coke Blak.' Coke Blak will be rolled out in France first and later in 2006 to the United States. Pepsi beat Coco-Cola to the punch on Coffee-Soda drinks. Pepsi Kona was tested in 1994 and 1996. Pepsi Cappuccino and Pepsi Tarik are already in the market.

I am looking forward to trying these products. I drink coffee and soda at different times in the day and enjoy both drinks. I am just not sure that I really want both to be combined.

WMIC - Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line Tool

I was listening to the podcast 'In The Trenches.' One of the items they talked about was WMIC. This sounds like a great little tool. WMIC is a tool that enable systems management from the command line. Here is a short list of links I have found.

• Using the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) tool
• WMIC - Take Command-line Control over WMI
• WMIC.exe
• WMIC

Firefox Resources

The first resource I have for you today is the 'Firefox Tweak Guide' from TechSpot. This is not your typical speed tweak guide. This tweak guide covers Profiles, Toolbars, General, Privacy, Content, Tabs, Download, Advance, Plugins, Extensions, Themes, Advance Configuration, Auto-Updates, Bookmarks, Caching, Connections, Rendering and Scripting. In short this guide is what you really would have like to be the help file.

The next resource is the 'Gmail Manager'. This extension allows you to manage multiple gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications.

Resource For A Lazy Programmer

DotNetSlackers - ASP.NET News for Lazy Developers is a website that is aggregating the content of several other sites. There are two points of interest for me. The first is the large number of websites they are dealing with. The second point of interest they provide the news content as a webservice. This will make it simple to display related blogs, stories and news on a site.

Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures

Check out the 'Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures.' This site lists general algorithms of common functions and problems. The site does not include algorithms that pertain to business data processing, operating systems, distributed algorithms, programming languages, AI, graphics, communications or numerical analysis.

Beginner's Guide To Search Engine Optimization

Getting listed in a search engine is fairly easy. Most search engines have a page that allows the manual submission of a URL. It normally takes a day or two for the search engine scan your page. Now that you are listed in a search engine you will want to try to increase your page ranking.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of practices that you can apply to a website in an effort to increase its ranking within a search engine.

Getting started with SEO usually several hours of reading. Reading SEO related websites for relevant information and reading search engine FAQ's. To help cut through the clutter and get started on the right for the site SEOmoz.org has a great posting entitled 'Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization.'

I have quickly scanned the article and noted several places where I am going to have to re-read carefully.

X-Ray Magazine Issue #8

X-Ray Magazine Issue #8 is now on-line. This issue features: News species discovered, Deep sea discoveries, Treasures up for sale, Turtles heading for Scotland, Flourescent sharks, South Africa Theme, Cafe fur seal heaven, Getting close with a White shark, Ragged Tooth shark Biology, Toying with Tiger Sharks, Safaris, Profile: Andre Hartman - the Shark man, Equipment News, DEMA report, Gifts for the Holidays, Photography: Let there be Light.

Sed Tutorials

In an effort to improve my Lunix/Unix knowledge I have stumbled across two tutorials for Sed. Sed is short for Stream Editor. Why would I want to use Sed? Sed is great for performing repetitive edits that would take a long time to do manually. For example you could use Sed to every instance of 'Bob Smith' to 'Mr. Robert Smith.' Sed does this by sequentially reading a file a single line at a time into memory. Sed makes the changes to the line in memory. The changed line can be sent to screen or file.

The first resource is Sed - An Introduction and other comes from Oracle Using the sed Editor.

Python And .NET

Yesterday I stumbled across a couple of Python and .NET resources. The first resource GotDotNet called IronPython. IronPython is a version of Python that runs on the .NET implementation. The second is Visual Python which is an plug-in to Visual Studio. Visual Python looks fairly interesting there is a trail version you can download.

Some Thoughts On Why To Learn Another Programming Language

I am always looking at other languages. I like to learn programming languages. Not only does this increase the tools in my toolbox but it gives me another way of thinking about a problem. Each programming language was built to solve a need. That need sets the context in which the programmer thinks. As I learn new languages and new ways of thinking about problems, I try to apply that thinking to languages I ready know. This has lead me to simpler and more productive solutions. I encourage you to take the time to add another langauge to your toolbox and let me know how that new language has impacted the way you address a problem.

Try Ruby

I was John Lam's blog posting 'TryRuby' on Less is Better yesterday. His posting about an on-line tutorial for Ruby. What is really cool about this tutorial is there is no software to install. You can give it a try yourself at http://tryruby.hobix.com/. If you like the tutorial you can get get a one-click Ruby installer at RubyForge.

St. Louis DotNetNuke User's Group

Chris Hammond has started a DotNetNuke User Group in St. Louis.

You can find the offical website for the group at http://www.dnnug.com

Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 is has been released.

This release includes:

• Automated update
• Faster browser navigation
• Ability to reorder broswer tabs
• Improved popup blocking
• Improved to product usbility
• Improved accessibility
• Improved security

Free File Hosting

gHacks has a large list of file hosts. File hosts allows an upload and storage of filetypes. A file host is a great way of sharing files with friends and family. You can also use a file host to make a cheap backup of critical files.

List Of Google Maps

Cool Google Maps is a new blog that is listing various Google Maps.

The list includes the following maps:

• Ski / Snowboard Resort Map
• Site Visitors Map
• New York City Live Cam Map
• US Hot Springs Map
• HotOrNot Map
• Movie and Showtime Map
• Weekly Earthquakes Map
• Dig To The Other Side Map
• MySpace User Map
• Sex Offenders Map
• World Time Map
• Urinal Locations Map
• Vegas Strip Hotel Map
• Fast Food Location Map
• XBOX 360 Locator
• Apple Retail Stores Map
• Hotel Finder Map
• Demographic Report Map
• D.C. Traffic Camera Map
• Google News Headlines Map
• Road Construction Map
• Local Gas Price Map
• Craigslist Housing Map
• Weather Forecast Mashup

Mozilla Browser Comes To The Pocket PC

Mozilla has release Minimo (Mini Mozilla) for the Windows Mobile devices, this includes Windows CE, Pocket PC 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2003SE. You can think of this as Firefox for the Pocket PC.

Podcasting Equipment For Less Than $200

Update 2005.11.27
M-Audio has put together a podcasting solution call 'Podcast Factory.' The 'Podcast Factory' includes; professional 24-bit/48kHz audio interface with preamp, dynamic broadcast microphone, microphone input channel with gain control and signal LEDs, switchable instrument/line input, stereo headphone output, stereo output jacks, level control for headphones and main outputs, USB bus-powered for mobile operation, and includes software for recording and editing, adding music and sound effects.

The MRSP for 'Podcast Factory' is $179.95 US.

I have not idea about the quality of the mic or the software but for less $200 you can get started.

Original 2005.07.11
Check out 'Upgrade Your Podcast for Under $200' over at the blog Jake Ludington's MediaBlab. Jake explains three specific hardware components for recording the voice. What I like about this article Jake explains what the equipment is, why you need it and a how not to drain your pocket book.

Google's Plan For The Dark Fiber

Robert X. Cringely has an interest article 'Google-Mart
Sam Walton Taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet Than Microsoft Ever Did.' Cringely has an interesting idea what Google may be doing with all the dark fiber they have purchased. If Cringely is on the right track then Google stands to get the advantage of redundancy, fault tolerance, reduced latency, improved datacenter communication and load-balacing.

A dual-screen hack

I stumbled across an interesting tool for emulating a dual monitor configuration. You can get x2vnc from Hubbe's Corner. I think I need to take this program out for a spin in the near futre.

Ruby on Rails Tutorials

Digital Media Minute has a posting 'Top 12 Ruby on Rails Tutorials.' Jim Rutherford has done a nice job of putting together a list of useful resources.

Wikipedia

Here are a couple of interesting resources for Wikipedia.

With Wapedia gives you access to the wikipedia from your pda or mobile phone, from your mobile phone type http://en.wapedia.org in your WAP Browser, from your PDA type http://pda.en.wapedia.org in your browser.

You can download the Wikipedia as XML with wikimedia dumps.

Run Commands For Windows XP

Over FixMyXP.com there is a list of commands you can use from the run command.

O3 Magazine

O3 magazine is a free magazine. The focus is on the use of Free and Open Source (FOSS) software in Enterprise Data Networking environments.

Free Text Books

Textbook Revolution gives you access to alot of free text books. You just got to love the price.

Unit Testing

I have found a few websites and blog posting on Unit Testing that I would like to share.


Unit Test Patterns - Shows examples of unit testing patterns

Unit Testing in .NET Projects - A quick article covering unit testing with VS 2005, NUnit, MBUnit and Visual Studio Team System.

Scuba Diving Podcasts

Here is quick list of podcasts on scuba diving.

Bottom Time Radio
Scuba Radio
Blue Beyond
Pod Diver Radio

Am I missing any?

Sony And DRM

Update: 2005.11.27
Texas is now filing a civil lawsuit against Sony BMG.

Sony is seeing a drop in CD sales. Music artists are also upset with Sony over the rootkit. See the full story 'Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco' By Lorraine Woellert at BusinessWeekOnline.

The RIAA is also jumping into the act. I guess they feel the need to make stupid statements. The RIAA feels that Sony hyas done nothing wrong and the technology is at fault. I just love it when a company shoots themself in the foot. More information can be found at Slashdot in the posting 'President of RIAA Says Sony-BMG Did Nothing Wrong.'

Update: 2005.11.18
Schneier on Security has a nice post entitled 'Sony's DRM Rootkit: The Real Story.' This posting is a nice summary of the whole issue.

Update: 2005.11.15
There is some good news and some bad news.

First the bad news. Sony has released an unistaller for the rootkit that leaves a security hole.

Sony’s Web-Based Uninstaller Opens a Big Security Hole; Sony to Recall Discs

Now for the good news. Sony said that they will pull the CD's from the stores and Sony is offering an exchange for those who already bought a CD.

Sony to pull controversial CDs, offer swap

Update: 2005.11.14
Microsoft's AnitSpyware application called 'Windows Defender' will detect and remove the rootkit.

Microsoft to Zap Sony DRM 'Rootkit'
Microsoft: Sony Anti-Piracy Software Is Spyware

Sony goofed big time again. The rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to another peice of licensed code in another program. I just love it. Sony claims it is trying to protect its property with the rootkit and violates that rights of another license holder do it.

Spyware Sony seems to breach copyright

I thought the rootkit was bad. You should check out this article 'Now the Legalese Rootkit: Sony-BMG's EULA' Sony wants to change what you can do with a CD you buy.


Update: 2005.11.11
The Register has a nice summary what is going on. The summary is entitled 'Sony BMG faces digital-rights seige.'

Both Slashdot and Gizmodo have posts about the Sony Rootkit for the Mac.

It appears that Sony is finally reaction to all the pressure and critisim. Sony halts production of music CDs with copy-protection scheme.

Update: 2005.11.10
More lawsuits for Sony. California has filed a lawsuit agains Sony.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10/0024259&from=rss

Virus writes are now taken advantage of the Sony rootkit. From the reports I have seen the virus has been found in the wild.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/

Update: 2005.11.08
Sony is now being sued over the rootkit.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6378758.html?tag=blog

Thomas Hesse the President of Sony BMG's global digital business division has something to say about the rootkit issuse.

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" he huffed.

WHAT?!? What kind of response is this! Mr. Hesse's comment is totally unacceptable. Mr. Hesse please turn in your resignation.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/09/sony_drm_who_cares/

Original Post: 2005.11.07
Wow. Sony has really got a PR nightmare on its hands. I would like to make is known that I like Sony hardware but after reading the following links I am going to have to reconsider buying anything from Sony.

Sony in an over zealous act has added a rootkit to many of the audio CD's that was released in the last eight months or so. A rootkit is a term used to describe as set of programs that attempt to hide their presence from spyware blockers and antivirus programs. Rootkits are typically associated with malware, including viruses, spyware, and trojans. Sony is using the rootkit to add extra copy protection to their audio CDs. This is bad. In an effort to protect its intellectual property rights Sony has felt justified in installing additional software on my computer without clearly explaining what the software does and without my explicit approval. There is an argument that the EULA contains language that grants permission to Sony to install software. If we have learned anything about software is that there is individuals who will try to exploit any weakness found in the software. I have not found any reported cases of the Sony rootkit being exported but the possibility exists. The rootkit is difficult to remove without completely wiping out and rebuilding the computer in question.

Instead of taking the high road by releasing an uninstall for the rootkit Sony released an update to the rootkit that makes is visible. There are three main problems with this. The first is they did not remove the rootkit. Secondly the update can crash windows. Lastly the update contains additional software. It appears that the rootkit now calls back to Sony with information.

I am not happy with the any of the actions that Sony has taken. I feel that I am left with only on choice. I will not be purchasing any Sony product. I encourage you to take the time to read the following links and post your thoughts here.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/11/03/HNsonypatch_1.html
http://wwwhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif.infoworld.com/article/05/11/04/HNsonydrm_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/11/07/HNsonypatchcrasheswindows_1.html
http://tech.memeorandum.com/051103/p45#a051103p45
http://tech.memeorandum.com/051105/p4#a051105p4
http://techdirt.com/articles/20051104/180213_F.shtml
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989260&ft=1&f=3
http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/donkiely/archive/2005/10/31/17265.aspx
http://www.wired.com/news/rants/0,2350,69467,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/01/sony_rootkit_drm/
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27426
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,123438,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=921
http://news.com.com/2100-7355_3-5926657.html
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2005/11/sony_drm_and_tr.htm
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html

Office 12 XML Submitted To ECMA

Microsoft is submitting Office 12 XML to the ECMA standards body. Way to go Microsoft.

Brian Jones: Office XML Formats
Office Open XML

Math Refresher

I stumbled across 'Mathematical Backgroud' by John F. Sowa. The site covers: Sets, Bags, and Sequences, Functions, Lambda Calculus, Graphs, Relations, Representing Relations by Graphs, Lattices, Propositional Logic, Predicate Logic, Axioms and Proofs, Formal Grammars, Game Graphs, and Model Theory. After a quick scan of the site, I think I am going to need to spend some time with a math book or two.

Mono Status '05

Miguel de Icaza has posted "Mono Status '05." This is just a general status a more comprehensive document is coming.

SharePoint Resources

It is time to learn a little something about SharePoint. Here is what I have found so far. Does anyone have any additional resources to share?

SharePoint General Information Sources

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/ODC_SPSCustomizingSharePointSites1.asp
• http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/sharepoint/archive.aspx
• http://portal.sharepointsolutions.com/default.aspx

Applications for Windows SharePoint Services

• http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt/wssapps/default.mspx

Customizing SharePoint Sites

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_sp2003_ta/html/ODC_SPSCustomizingSharePointSites1.asp
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/ODC_SPSCustomizingSharePointSites2.asp
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/ODC_SPSCustomizingSharePointSites3.asp

Writing Custom Web Services for SharePoint Products and Technologies

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/ODC_WritingCustomWebServicesforSPPT.asp

Developing Web Parts for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 in .NET

• http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/17518/1954?pf=true

Book/Part of a Book
Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit

• http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt/reskit/default.mspx

SharePoint Portal Server Deployment Resources

• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011442341033.aspx

Blogs

• http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/
• http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/archive/2004/08/08/2238.aspx

Templates

• http://sharepoint.bilsimser.com/pages/templates.aspx

Themes

• http://www.infotechcanada.com/productivity_solutions/themepack.aspx

World's Largest Indoor Aquarium

I have just found a reason to make a trip to Atlanta, Georgia now. In a few days the 8 million gallon aquarium will open. It will support over 100,000 sea creatures. Lets look to the Shedd aquarium in Chicago for reference. Shedd is a 5 million gallon aquarium with around 20,000 sea creatures. The pictures I have seen so far are amazing. I am going to have to make a vist.

Source: CNN
Article: Big window to the sea

St. Louis 3rd Most Dangerous City

Great. Just great. This is just one more reason why I need to get my family out of here.

Morgan Quitno Press published its annual report "City Crime Rankings." The three most dangerous citites are:

• Camden, N.J.
• Detroit
• St. Louis

The three saftest cities are:

• Newton, Mass.
• Clarkstown, N.Y.
• Amherst, N.Y.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Article: St. Louis is 3rd most dangerous city, study says

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

My wife and I went last night to see the movie 'Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.' I read the book a few years ago. As I recall the book, I enjoyed it. I can sum my opinion of the movie in two words. It sucks. The book created a world that was rich in details and I was interested in what happened to the characters. I know that it is difficult to take a several thousand pages of text to reduce it to a two and half hour movie. I am also well aware the book is always better then the movie. I guess what I hated the most was the way the movie producers twisted the ending. The book left you wanting the next book. The movie left me disappointed and questioning if I want to see the next movie when it comes out.

Free e-book of God's Debris

Scott Adams is offering his ebook “God’s Debris” for free.

I have not read the book yet but I like Scott Adams and I like the price.

List of Google Services

TipMonkies has a posting entitled 'The Penultimate Guide to Google Services.' I am having a hard time keeping track of all the services Google offer. I am aware of about half of the items on the lists. I will have to look into the other half soon.

Stats On US Cities

Winter is quickly approaching and I am longer interested in cold tempatures, ice and snow. I want to move further south. I am not sure where I want to move to. My research have lead me to City-Data.com. City-data makes it easy to compare cities.

Music On A Stick

The music group Barenaked Ladies is releasing special content on a USB flash memory stick. The connect should go on sale Nov. 22, 2005 for $30.00. What a neat idea. I hope it works well.


Original story can be found at the Barenaked Ladies Website.

Cheat Sheets For Developers

As a developer I spend a lot of time learning new languages. I have a good handle on the theory but remembering all the little details gets harder and harder. Help in on the way. Check out 'Cheat Sheet Roundup - Over 30 Cheatsheets for developers.' I have checked out a couple the cheat sheets. They look helpful.

Change To Comments

Update: 2005.11.11
I have changed the comment rules again. I am now going to start moderating the comments. I have received what I beleive to be comment spam. I am hoping this will help.

Original 2005.05.30
I have changed the comment rules to be open to anyone. If I get too many spam emails I will change the comment rules again.

DIY Laptop

LaptopLogic has posted 'Do-It-Yourself Laptop.' The article takes you step by step through building your own laptop. When it time to buy a new laptop I am going to have to give this a lot of consideration.

Project Management with Trac

NewsForge has an interesting post entitled 'Project management with Trac.' The article has peeked my interest in Trac. It looks like I should look at little futher into Trac.

Tax Advice For Powerball Winners

I have not played Powerball for a number of years so that advice does not apply to me. I like the saying that the "lottery is a tax on people who can't do math." During a stats class in my college days we did the math. Every since that day I have bought a total of 5 tickets over 10 years. When every I do play I do it for entertainment purposes only. With all that said the Tax Prof blog has an interesting post "Powerball Winners Get Faulty Tax Advice."

Best Practices For Least Privileged Development

I found this article on the MSDN site in the Windows Vista Developer Center. The article is entitled 'Developer Best Practices and Guidelines for Applications in a Least Privileged Environment.'

This is a fairly large article. It covers why you should develop using a Least Privileged Environment, design considerations, deploying the application and much more. I have been toying with the idea trying to develop in a least privileged environment for a while now. It looks like I will have to expend alot of time an effort to setup the development environment. I am just not sure that the payoff will be worth it? If anyone has tried development in a least privileged environment I would like to hear from you.

Sony Mini Disk

Sony is releasing two new versions of the MD walkman. You can find more product information here.

Other postings about the new MD devices: I4UNews and Gizmodo.

Free EBooks

Over at Peter Watts' website Rifters.com you can down two free books in PDF format. I have not read the books but the price is good.

2005.11.02 Update: Microsoft has over 1500 books available for free in there eBook Catalog. All the books are in Microsoft Reader foramt. The books are from the public domain and various reference materials.

Book Review: The Elements of Style

This is a book that everyone should own and reference. The books covers grammar rules, principles of composition, form, commonly misused words and expressions finally concluding with developing your own style. This is the type of book where you get a lot out of it the first time you read it and it teaches you something every time to reference it. I now finally understand what some of my English teachers where trying to teach me.

Authors: William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Title: The Elements of Style
Publisher: Longman Publishers
ISBN: 020530902X

2005.11.02 Update: NPR is running a story about the "'Elements of Style' Goes Beyond Words." It appears that music and visuals are being added.

Google Video

Google Video allows you to search for material from archived TV programs, educational videos, personal productions and more.

Generics FAQ

Microsoft has posted a set of FAQ's on Generics.

Generics FAQ: Fundamentals
Generics FAQ: .NET Framework
Generics FAQ: Tool Support
Generics FAQ: Best Practices

Rory Blyth Podcasting Again

Rory Blyth is getting back into Podcasting. The podcast will be focused on Windows Mobile and Embedded technology called TinyThings.

You can find Rory's announcement here.

Fonts and Typography

kickStartNews.com has an interesting interview with Mario Georgiou in Postcast #24. Howard and Mario covered a lot of ground that included some basic information about Typography and where to find commercial and free fonts.

How Much My blog Is Worth

Over at Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog you can find the post 'How Much Is My Blog Worth?'

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Manage Documents For A Project

Tech Republic posted 'Manage the documents on a project before they manage you.' You can read this article in a couple of minutes. There is nothing earthshaking in the article. It clearly lists the items you should consider at the start of any project.

Schtuff Wiki

No time. No money. No Server. No Problem. You can setup your own wiki at Schtuff. The schtuff wiki comes with several nice features: custom permissions, document tagging, image gallery, RSS and Email notification, document revisions and history, 200MB of space, search, saved searche and file upload.

Homemade Notebook

Sometimes technology is not always the best solution, Over at Full Contact Geek they have the Ultimate Pocket Notebook. With a few office supplies and little time you can create your notebook that contains all the tools you need to make it through a day.

ECMA International

ECMA International is an association dedicated to the standardization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE). You can read more about there history.

Microsoft is working with ECMA over the .NET Framework and C#. You can get your hands on the standards documents at the following.

Standard ECMA-335 - Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
Standard ECMA-334 - C# Language Specification
Standard ECMA-367 - Eiffel analysis, design and programming Language

Why ARE Internet-based Applications Bad?

Over the couple of months I have blogged about several web-based applications; Writeboard, Writely, Meebo, Google Reader, Airset and Num Sum. Today I came across the Robin 'Roblimo' Miller article 'Three reasons why Internet-based applications are a bad idea' at the NewsForge site. The basic point of the article is how do you work when you can't connect to the website that is hosting the tool or your data. There have been times when I could not connect to the internet and was glad to have my tools installed on the laptop . I can see a time in the near future where many of the applications we use today will have both a web-based and stand alone components that sync as you move in and out of internet accessable zones.

UMLet

UMLet 5.5 has been released. UMLet is a tool for drawing UML diagrams. The tool is an open-source project written in java. The diagrams you create can be saved in a number of formats. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Blogger 1.0 And 2.0 .NET Component

Matt Fausey has released Blogger 1.0 .NET Component and Blogger 2.0 .NET Component. Both of these components provides an API for managing blogs at blogger.com. You can create new posts, edit existing posts, delete posts, and download blog posts.

CSS References

Omar AL Zabir has a great list of CSS refences in his blog posting 'CSS Goodies.'

Heartland Developers Conference

The Heartland Developers Conference (HDC) takes place Oct. 12-14. The conference is already sold out. I can't wait for the conference to start there are several sessions that promise to interesting and soemthing I can put to work right away.

I have started seeing blog posts on the HDC. Check out Eric Johnson's post 'Heartland Developers Conference Game Zone' and Jeff Julian's 'Getting Ready for HDC.'

Online Calendar

AirSet is a web-based calendar. AirSet is more than a calendar program it includes the ability to organize contacts, lists, blog and weblinks. AirSet can sync with Outlook and your mobile phone.

Num Sum - Online Spreadsheet

I have blogged about two document editors Writeboard and Writely. There is an online spreadsheet call Num Sum. You can use this program to create quick throw away spreadsheet or a spreadsheet with a little more staying power.

In poking around the site several people have put spreadsheets you can use as a template.

Scuba Fuel

Scuba Fuel is a sports drink designed for the scuba diver. The site includes some of the nutritional facts about the drink.

Charles Petzold Is Blogging

The great computer guru Charles Petzold is now blogging.

30 Gigs Web-base Email

30gigs.com is offering a 30 GigaByte mailbox.

Ten Best Things To Say If You Get Caught Sleeping At Your Desk

Check out Rich Burridge's Weblog posting 'Ten Best Things To Say If You Get Caught Sleeping At Your Desk.' There are some great one liners here.

Writeboard

Writeboard is web-based tool that allows create, edit, version control docuements. Since the tool is web-based you can choose who can edit the document.

New Gmail Features

Google recently released several new features for Gmail. The auto-save and contact export features that people have been requesting for a long time now.

Creating A PDF From A RSS Feed

I am not sure why I would need this but it seems like I should find a reason.

Over at www.rss2pdf.com you can try out a Beta version of a 'Free Online RSS, Atomor OPML to PDF Generator.'

Windows CD/DVD Tools

TipMonkies has this great article 'Free Windows CD/DVD software roundup.' Martin lists 5 tools for creating CD's or DVD's at the great price of free.

St. Louis .NET User Group - Sept.

Last night was the St. Louis .NET User Group meeting. There where 50+ people in attendance. Brian Noyes gave an interesting presentation on 'Smart Client Deployment and Update with ClickOnce'. ClickOnce is a method of simplifying the process of deploying and updating a Smart Client or Windows Application. There is a wizard to help guide you through the process of deploying your custom app with ClickOnce. Once the application is built you have several options to deploy most of which involve sending the location of the update to the client. There are a few more options but Brian did not cover them because 80% of time people are deploying through the web or email.

Brain is an INETA speaker, Microsoft MVP and writer. If you get a chance to hear Brain speak take it.

Writely

Writely is a web based word processor. The program is currently in beta and being offered for free. Once the program moves out of beta there will be serveral pricing tiers. Writely has the power deal with Word documents. The process converts the Word document to HTML for editing and display. One of the interesting features is the collaboration tools. The document author has the power to add editors to the document.

Firefox 1.0.7

Firefox 1.0.7 has been released.

Changes include:

• Fix for a potential buffer overflow vulnerability when loading a hostname with all soft-hyphens
• Fix to prevent URLs passed from external programs from being parsed by the shell (Linux only)
• Fix to prevent a crash when loading a Proxy Auto-Config (PAC) script that uses an "eval" statement
• Fix to restore InstallTrigger.getVersion() for Extension authors

Building A Refactoring Plug-In For VS.NET

I found an interesting article over on The Code Project website that talks about 'Building a Refactoring Plug-in for VS.NET' Stephan has done great job putting the article together. The plug-in framework that was put together is simple and straight forward. It looks like I am going to be spending some time with the code.

Changes Between .NET Framework Versions

Over at Got Dot Net there is a posting that describes changes between the different version of the .NET Framework. There are a lot of details here that .NET developer should check before they make the jump to Version 2.

Web Based Chat Program

Meebo.com is a web based chat program that can connect to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber, GTalk or MSN. The tool is in alpha developement so it is not a full featured as one would like but it is still cool.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Arrr! It is that time of year again. It is Talk Like A Pirate Day.

FreeTechBooks

FreeTechBooks.com lists online computer science books and lecture notes. The books are free and legally available over the Internet.

There is a lot of great links here. I am going to be spending a lot time following the links on this site.

Stupid Registry Tricks

Coding Horror has posted 'Stupid Registry Tricks'. Several of these tricks should be helpful to most people.

Changing the registry has a level risk. Please make sure you understand the change and double check your work.

Make Your Own Notepaper

Harvard instructor Simson Garfinkel has a web service which creates semi-custom lined notepaper in PDF format.

Notepaper Generator

Wiki Services

Today I found three sites which are offering free wiki hosting servies. If you sign up with one of these services please read Terms of service and the F.A.Q.s carefully.

• pbwiki
• wikispaces
• schtuff

Create Your Own First Person Shooter

If you are into First Person Shooters you may be interested in creating your own game. FPS Creator is a tool that can help make your dream come true. This site claims you don't need any programming skills. You will have to work with scripts to control the game action.

10 Things You Shouldn't Do with SQL Server

dotnetjunkies has posted the article '10 Things You Shouldn't Do with SQL Server.' There is nothing surprising about the item on the list an experienced DBA and/or developer should already know these things. If you are a novice programmer or DBA read the article now. For the more experienced DBA's and developers please do a quick review to refresh your memory.

CSS 101

Over at the site Web Page Design For Designers as nice series for web pages on Cascading Style Sheets called 'CSS from the Ground Up.' These pages cover what you need to know to get create a CSS page and how to link it into your HTML page.

PocketMod

PocketMod the free disposable personal organizer.

The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card. It is hard to describe just how incredibility useful the PocketMod is. It's best that your just dive in and creating one.

- http://www.pocketmod.com/

This looks like a great tool for those times when you can't or don't want to carry your pda.

T-Shirts For Scuba Divers

Over at Fish Pie T-shirts you can get your hands on several great T-shirts for Scuba divers.

Use C# To Implement A Cron Service

Over at Code Project there is a neat little article showing you how to implement a small Cron service in C#.

This is not a full blown Cron service you would normally find in the UNIX and Linux world but if you need a small highly customizable scheduler this may be fairly helpful.

Skinning GMail

With the Firefox extension URLid and a simple CSS file you can put a different look on your GMail account.

You can find instructions in the TipMonkies post 'Skinning GMail' and at the Gmailinvitation posting 'GMail Skinning Quick Guide.'

Death By Caffeine

Check out how much caffeine you need to consume to kill you.

http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/

Dive Into Python

Over at http://diveintopython.org/, you can download a copy of the book 'Dive into Python.'

EJB Design Patterns Book

TheServerSide.com has the book 'EJB Design Patterns' for download in PDF format.

You are read TheServerSide.com posting here.

FireTune for FireFox v1.x

I came across this cool little tool call FireTune that helps in configuring FireFox.

Update: I have installed the program and applied the tweaks. I am really pleased with the results. FireFox seems to be a lot more responsive.

Ebooks and Audiobooks from the Edwardsville Public Library

From the Edwardsville Intelligencer, the local newspaper for Edwardsville, Il, there are two interesting articles of how the public library there is getting on-board with ebooks and audiobooks.

The first article is 'ebooks vs. audio books.' The second article is 'Edwardsville library offering free downloads of audio books.'

The Edwardsville Public Library is working with NetLibrary to offer the ebooks and audiobooks to their members. This is something you may want to suggest to your local librarian.

Acrylic

For you bleeding edge professional graphics people, check out Acrylic from Micorsoft. Acrylic is the code name for design program that combines pixel-based painting with vector graphics.

Visual C++ PowerTools

Over at GotDotNet you can get the VC++ PowerTools.

The tools include:

• Delta - Watch a directory to what items get changed.
• FindDir - Find a directory on a server
• Windows Installer Log Parser - Viewer for log files generated from Windows Installer Setups.
• Depends - Scans and builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependant modules.
• Window Control - COM Object allowing simple manipulation of windows via scripting languages.
  
• SpCheck - Service Pack Checker will check the origin of many different components on a system.
• Err - Lookup Error Constants in a number of NT Tables
• ProcWait - Waits for 1 or more processes to terminate and inherits their return values.
  
• C++ IFilter - C++ IFilter for Indexing Service searchs C++ code.
• Ci - Command-line search tool for Indexing Service.
• Srch - Graphical search tool for Indexing Service.
• Wear - Reports all matches for an exe in the path.
• JumpWin - Move an application from 1 monitor to another (when using multimon) at the touch of a key.
• Remoted - Software Switchbox allows you to control multiple computers by moving your mouse to the edge of a screen.
• Backinfo - Generates a wallpaper with System Data.
• KAPIMon - Debugging Framework based on Kernel and User API Hooks. Do Not use on Windows XP machines.
  
• SmartAny - This template library for generic resource management.
• GRETA - Regular expression library that supports full Perl 5 syntax.

Colani's Trucks

Colani Design has brought to life some interesting designs for trucks.

Pentix - Dedicated To The Art Of Pen Spinng

Pentix is a web site focusing on the art of "pen spinning." This is a neat little site it covers several pen spinning tricks and has several videos you an check out.

Build Your Own Render Farm

ExtremeTech.com has a great article about building your own render farm with old machines. The article covers building a render farm from a fairly high level.

Shell.NET

Check out Shell.NET. This is a collection of classic Unix application implemented in .NET.

The collection includes Cal, CopyFiles, Grep, SameFiles, SameDir, Tail, WordCount and other tools.

U.S. Navy Diving Manual

Today I came across the U.S. Navy Diving Manual so I was got a little curious about who else had links to it. Here some of the more interesting links:


Virtual Naval Hospital has a link to the PDF version which is over 900 pages.

Amazon.com has it for a fee.

Oxycheq.com has some pictures of rebreathers from older versions of the manual.

American Dive Center has each chapter as a PDF. This makes it a little easier to deal with.

Sea OOC has an exe you can download plus several other interesting looking publications.

http://www.diverlink.com/library/usn/ has the each chapter as its own PDF.

Airspeed Press has a link to order a copy of the manual on CD.

DiveHistory.com does not has a link to the US Navy Diving Manual but does has an interesting timeline on the Evolution of US Navy Diving. I also some books they have for sale that look interesting.

Podcast Award

In case you have not heard the podcast awards have been announced. It looks like I will be adding some more URLs to my podcast client.

Scuba Podcast

PADI is getting into podcasting. The RSS feed is http://www.padi.com/rss/rss.xml.

Free Videos To Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions

Check out this video series aimed at beginner programmer looking to get started with Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition or Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. The vidoes are from LearnVisualStudio.NET they have done some interesting videos in the past so I am expecting these videos to be good.

Skype 1.3.0.60 Released

Skype 1.3.0.60 For Windows has been released.

This version includes a bugfix for call quality is improved for users with restrictive firewalls and routers.

Star Wars Episode 3

If you check out Best Buys website you can find the release date of 11/01/2005 for Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith.

Technical Videos.NET

Technical Videos .NET is producing training videos for IT professionals at a reasonable price. The training videos cover .NET, SQL Server and Flash MX. You can buy a 3 month membership for $20 and a yearly membership for $40.

I have not have a membership nor have I seen any of the videos so I can not talk about the quality of the video. I really like the price so it may be work checking out.

Podcast Hosting On The Cheap

Over at TipMonkies there is the article 'Podcast hosting on the cheap.'

This article has a nice list of various podcast hosting services with pricing information.

L Sharp .NET

L Sharp .NET is a lisp based scripting for .NET. L Sharp is distribued under the GNU General Public License.

Needing A Boot Disk

I am trying to install Slackware one of my old PC's. It appears that I have hosed up the partioning the hard drives so I need to get my hands on a boot disk. I have tried to make boot disks in the past using Windows XP. This has resulted in a boot disk that I can't use except with Windows XP. So I need an old DOS 6 boot disk. The web comes to my rescue again. The website Bootdisk.com has just what I am looking for.

ConnectionStrings.com

I am working on a project that requires the use of ADO.NET to connect to a MS SQL Server. In trying to figure out what I should use for a connection string I came across the website ConnectionStrings.com. This site lists connection strings for SQL Server, Access, Oracle, MySQL, Interbase, IBM DB2, Sysbase, Informix, Ingres, Mimer SQL, Lightbase, PostgreSQL, Paradox, DSN, Firebird, Excel, Text, DBF/FoxPro, AS/400, Exchange, Visual FoxPro, Pervasive adn UDL.

Blog Software Comparison Chart

I found a 'Blog software comparison chart' over at website USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review.

The chart by itself is great but if you tie it back to the companion article 'Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?' You gain insight into cost and how long it will take to sign up.

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

From time to time I hit Microsoft's website PowerToys for Windows XP.

There are some great little tools here:

• RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer
• ClearType Tuner
• HTML Slide Show Wizard
• Open Command Window Here
• Alt-Tab Replacement
• Tweak UI
• Power Calculator
• Image Resizer
• CD Slide Show Generator
• Virtual Desktop Manager
• Taskbar Magnifier
• Webcam Timershot

Hockey About To Start

It appears the cry babies know as the owners and players have finally come to an agreement so the hockey session can start. You can check out the press release from the NHL titled 'Board Of Governors Ratifies Collective Bargaining Agreement' to see what they agreed to.

Acer TravelMate C310 Convertible Tablet

Acer has release the TravelMate C310 Convertible Table PC.

The Specs:

• 14.1-inch XGA display
• Sonoma Centrino with Pentium M and DDR2 SDRAM
• GeForce Go 6200 graphics
• 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth
• Gigabit Ethernet
• dual-layer DVD burner
• 80 or 100GB hard drive
• 4-in-1 card reader
• magnesium chassis
• 8.5-hour battery
• price $1,700

Harry Potter E-Book Controversy

Author J.K Rowling has a little problem with her last book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Rowling and her publisher did not make and release the lastest book in e-book format but some of her fans did.

Wired has a nice write up about the issue in the post Pirates of the Potter-ian.

I think more publishers and laywers need to pay attendtion to these Seven friendly suggestions for J.K. Rowling and her lawyer

Firefox 1.0.6

Firefox 1.0.6 is now out and it fixes the the API issue with version 1.0.5.

Blogger Templates

If you are a Blogger.com user addition templates can be found at 'Blogger Templates.' The site also has tips, hacks and tools to help with your site.

Cleaning Up After Yourself In .NET

TechRepublic is running 'Ensure object cleanup in your .NET applications.' This is a quick little article on using the dispose method and how to implement it in your own classes.

Turn A Gmail Account Into A Hard-Drive

If you have any invites left in your Gmail account you may wnat to consider setting up a new account to use as a hard-drive. This is a create way to move files between computers that are not on the same network without burning DVDs or Cds.

I have come across two different programs to that can make a Gmail account into a hard-drive: xmailharddrive.com or GMail Drive shell extension.

I have not yet tested either of these programs. I am hoping to get to it testing them soon. By the way I have a few Gmail invites left, so email me if you need one.

Making Money With Your Blog

It appears that several people are making some serious money with their blog. The first site I have for your tonight is 'Google AdSense Sercerts.' This site is run by Joel Comm. He has is selling his book that shows you how to make money with your blog.

The other site I have is 'ProBlogger.' The site is run by Darren Rowse. He recently claimed to have made over $14,000 for one month using Google AdSense. ProBlogger.net has recently been Slashdotted. You can read about Darren's experience on his post 'ProBlogger Slashdotted.'

Open Source Is No Longer Just For Software

A group of students at IT University of Copenhagen has brought open-source to beer. The recipe for their beer is published under a Creative Commons license. Wired News has the full article.

DIY Projector

From inventgeek.com comes 'A Practical Guide To The LCD Projectors.' This guide covers the theory, materials, assembly, fabrication, testing and configuration for building your own LCD Projector. I am amazed that you can build a projector for $200.

Firefox 1.0.5

Firefox 1.0.5 is now out.

This version includes security fixes:

• Code execution through shared function objects


• XHTML node spoofing


• Javascript prompt origin spoofing


• Standalone applications can run arbitrary code through the browser


• Same origin violation: frame calling top.focus


• The return of frame-injection spoofing


• Possibly exploitable crash in InstallVersion.compareTo


• Script injection from Firefox sidebar panel using data


• Same-origin violation with InstallTrigger callback


• Code execution via "Set as Wallpaper"


• XBL scripts ran even when Javascript disabled


• Content-generated event vulnerabilities

2005-07-18 Update: You may want to wait a few days for the Firefox 1.0.6 to be released. It appears that there is a security flaw with the API in Firefox 1.0.5. You can get more from the eWeek.com posting 'Firefox Flaw Leads to Upgrade Encore.'

Internet-Controlled Train Set

I came across the website 'Control Our Junk.' The three brothers who run this site has setup a Train Set that you can control through the internet.

Podcatcher On A Stick

'Podcatcher On A Stick' is a podcatching client that you install on your audio device.

Real Life Tron

From the file of someone with too much time on their hands, you can build a unit that allows you to play tron's light cycles in the real world.

Hacking The Wolfgang Puck Self-Heating Can

Phillip Torrone took apart on the new Wolfgang Puck self-heating coffee containers. Phillip did a good job taking pictures and documenting the steps he took. You can read the blog entry here.

Love CSI And Scuba Diving

You can how get a degree from Florida State University in Underwater Crime Scene Investigation. You can find out more from the PDF 'Underwater Crime Scene Investigation: An Introduction To Our Academic Program.'

Create Your Own Podcast

Today I found two articles on how to create your own podcast.

The first is from Cnet by Rick Broisa 'Create your own podcast.' The article walks you through several simple steps to get setup podcasting with little to now cash out lay.

The second article is from Digital Music Playlist for PC & Mac by Michael Gowan 'A podcast of your own.' This article spends more time on the hardware you need for creating a podcast.

Hotels For The Scuba Diver

As a Scuba diver I have high demands of the hotels I stay out while out on vacation. Unfortunely most can't meet the first requirement, it must be underwater. Over at the 'Unusual Hotels of the World' website I found a few hotles that are underwater.

Personal Submersibles Organization

Check out Personal Submersibles Organization Web Site.

They have information on building your own sub. I also found what is being called PSUBS OSS (Open Source Submarine) Project. Please read the site carefully as there are lots of saftey items you need to be aware of in building your own sub.

Still on the topic of submersibles. You can check out the website http://www.submarine-history.com.

Platypus

Platypus is a Firefox extension that allows you to modify a web page from your browser. You can team this tool up with Greasemonkey to save your scripts and reuse the script.

Some of the things you can do with Platypus include:

• Remove parts of the page you don't wish to see.
• Move a part of the page to a different location.
• Change the style and format of page elements.
• Modify all the links on the page using a regular expression.
• Insert your own HTML code.

T-shirt Printer

Got an extra $11K laying around? You can now buy the Fast T-Jet Inkjet printer which allows you to print directly on T-Shirts, Towels and Sweats. If you are into screen printing this printer could add a lot of flexibility to your business. The printer does have some limitations like image size and it has problems printing on dark fabrics.

Skype Developer Zone

Skype Developer Zone has the information you need to build Skype-enabled programs.

I think it is really cool that Skype has released the API. There are several legal items you need to read and you also need to sign up with Skype Partner Program. Now that I got the legal stuff out of the way you can dig into the API Documentation and examples. They also have a directory of programs using Skype.

PrintFu

PrintFu is a system that takes a PDF of more than 25 pages, print it, bind it and ship it.

Programming Language: Haskell

I am always looking for different programming languages. I believe that a programmer can not have to many langauges in their toolbox.

Today I stumbled across the programming language Haskell.

Points of interest about Haskell

• Haskell is a function language.
• Haskell is free.
• Haskell has not loops.
• Haskell does not use variables
• Haskell can either compled to native code or interpreted
• Haskell had interfaces to Java, .NET, Python and C.

Haskell Webiste
Haskell Wiki
Haskell article at Free Software Magazine

Regular Expression Library Builder

Brian Delahunty created Regular Expression Library Builder, a tool that allows the creation and modification of Regular Expression Libraries.

The RegexLibrary builder allows you to:

• Create CLS compliant Regular Expression Libraries - .NET assemblies that contain only regular expressions.
  
• Add multiple regular expressions to a single assembly.
  
• Define individual names, namespaces, regex modifiers, and accessibility levels on a per regex basis.
  
• Reload existing Regular Expression Libraries and add, remove, or modify regular expressions contained within.
  
• Manually set the version number of the assembly to help ensure compatibility with existing versions.
  
• Much, much, more... ;-)

freshfeed.pl: mix multiple RSS enclosures by publication date

freshfeed is a script that can create aggregated RSS feeds from multiple input sources. You can create an RSS feed containing just the most recent enclosures from multiple OPML inputs.

Lessons from Star Wars: Do you work for Darth Sidius?

I know that this a little dated but I just couldn't help throwing in my two cents.

Over at ITtoolbox.com there is a posting titled 'Lessons from Star Wars: Do you work for Darth Sidius?' I found the article humorous; there are some interesting points about how superstars work, how they are treated by others and how they think of themselves. Can we really simplify every IT boss into two groups? You are either a member of the Jedi Council, a group of people working with the notation that they actions are for the good of all, or a Dark Lord, an extremely small group of people working for massive political power. I just don’t thing that we can classify all of management this way.

One Vary large Catfish

Some stories are just so strange you just have to check it out.

Over at NationalGeographic.com there is a story of a man catching a giant catfish. The catfish was almost nine feet long and weighing in 646 pounds. According to the story the villagers tried to keep the fish alive but were unsuccessful.

Microsoft Skills Assessment

Microsoft has released several skill assessment tests. It appears that the tests are free when you completed a test you will receive a personalized learning plan. The learning plan includes Microsoft Curriculum courses, Microsoft books and Microsoft TechNet resources.

The assessment tests are being offered in the following categories:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003
• Windows XP
• Supporting the End-User Desktop
• Exchange Server 2003
• SQL Server 2000
• Security
• Office 2003
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Storage Server 2003
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
• Visual Studio .NET
• Desktop Deployment

IronPython

IronPython is a Python implemntation in .NET. Please remember that IronPython is in pre-alpha. Pre-alpha means that you should note load this on your production machine, you should expect bugs and features not working.

Python is a high-level general-purpose, interpreted, object-oriented programming language.

Update: DevX has the article 'Python + .NET = IronPython'.

Refactoring with Visual Studio Macros

There is a neat article over at O'Reilly 'Refactoring with Visual Studio Macros.' The article shows how to write your own macro to perform a refactoring.

Tiny Sykpe Phone

The FlashPhone F1K is a USB audio device with a build in flash drive. You can install Skype on this device plus the flash drive offers you the ability to keep a record of the calls.

This looks like a neat little device for the consultant who is always on the move.

Chase Durer Special Forces Underwater Demolition Team Chronograph

Check out this watch 'Chase Durer Special Forces Underwater Demolition Team Chronograph' over at The Wrist Watch Review.

The features include:

• Quartz movement
• Water Resistan to 330 mter/1000 feet
• The Bezel is unidirectional
• Expandable buckle
• Weight 6.2oz

You can buy the watch from Amazon.com - Chase Durer - CD2464BB7

ScubaDivingBooks.com

We all know that you can find books on Amazon's website but here is a website specializing in Scuba Diving Books. What makes this a standout site is the people who are running the site are also certified divers and the number and depth of categories. I did a quick scan of several of the categories and spotted several books I want.

Port Detective

Port Detective performs a remote port scan on your IP address. You can use this tool to help determine if are running in a secured environment. The best part of this the tool is free.

X-Ray Mag

I found a free dive magazine today. You can check it out at http://www.xray-mag.com/.

Cave Diving Website

If you are interested in Cave Diving or just want to find out more a quick stop at 'The Cave Diving Website' gives you a lot of information.

Alexandria's Submerged Archaeology

Check out the article 'Passion under water' from 'Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line'. The journalist, Rasha Sadek, gets a 30-minute intro into the world of diving then goes on a set of dives that makes other divers envious. Sadek makes dives at Pharos Island, Lover's Island and Abu Qir.

Google Maps Hacking for Sforce

Over at sforce there a great example of a google map hack.

Not Getting Enough News Each Day?

NewsIsFree.com is a news aggregator. They are claiming to have over 21,000 sources. You can look at all the sources or set up custom page to get news in a why that makes sense to you.

Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List

Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List.

Scott has updated his list of developer and power users tool list. There are several tools on the list that I will need to check out.

InterWrite MeetingPad

InterWrite MeetingPad™ by GTCO CalComp

Check out this neat little tool to help make meetings more interesting.

The secret benefit of search engine optimisation: Increased usability

The Code Project is running 'The secret benefit of search engine optimization: Increased usability.' This article has some great tips for optimizing your web pages not only for search engines but for readers as well. It looks like I will need to start applying some of the guidelines.

Diver Down Flags

Here is a quick little article on the history of the Diver Down Flag. Here is a nice article on the the Dive Flag Laws that apply in Florida.

Sensus Pro Diving Tool

Divester has review of 'Sensus Pro Diving Tool.' This is not a dive computer but a dive data recorder.

Couple Of Articles On Skype

Both of the articles come form InfoWorld.

'Call Skype for free from your mobile phone.' - A Norwegian company has come up with a use for your old cell phone. You will need to buy a special cable which should be available in August costing between $60 and $80.

'Third-party technologies enhance Skype.' - This article is about the economy that is growing up around Skype.

21-in-1 Card Reader

For all of you who have multiple memory cards you need the eBlue Fotolio. The device supports:

• CF-type I
• CF-type II
• CF-ultra II
• Micro Drive
• MS
• MS(Magic Gate)
• MS-Pro(Magic Gate)
• HS-MS-Pro(Magic Gate)
• MS-Duo
• MS-Duo(Magic Gate)
• MS-Pro-Duo(Magic Gate)
• HS-MS-Pro-Duo(Magic Gate)
• SD
• SD-ultra
• SDC
• MMC
• HS-MMC
• HS-MMC
• RS-MMC
• Mini SD
• T-Flash
• SM
• X Card

Free Visual Basic 2005 Book

Microsoft is making 'Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers' avaiable for free.

• Introduction


• Chapter 1 - Microsoft .NET Framework Primer for the Visual Basic Developer


• Chapter 2 - Language Enhancements for Visual Basic 2005


• Chapter 3 - Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment


• Chapter 4 - Building Datacentric Applications


• Chapter 5 - Constructing User Interfaces


• Chapter 6 - Building Web Applications


• Chapter 7 - Microsoft .NET Framework Enhancements


• Chapter 8 - Deploying Applications

Divester

I came across the blog Divester.com.

New Toshiba Notebooks

Toshiba is releasing some new notebooks.

The Truth About Shark Attacks

For the last few days I have read a number of stories about shark attacks. It appears that the same story is being replayed.

National Geographic is running 'Shark Facts: Attack Stats, Record Swims, More'. You can check their claims against Scuba Radio's Shark Attack Files.

Developing Windows Forms Applications on Mono

DevX.com is running an interesting article by Paul Ferrill 'Developing Windows Forms Applications on Mono'.

Tracking an IP Address

Rogers Cadenhead has an interesting article on how to track an IP Address.

Optware Holographic Versatile Card: 30GB on a credit card

Optware Holographic Versatile Card is a high capacity storage device that can 30GB of information on a card. This is something I will be keeping an eye on.

NLog

NLog is a .NET logging library similar in concepts to log4net, designed with simplicity and flexibility in mind.

Code Project is running the article 'Introduction to NLog' that shows how to use the tool.

Why True Star Wars Fans Hate Star Wars

You just need to read: The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom

Writing Down Passwords

Slashdot.org is running a discussion on writing down passwords. Security is an important issue and several of the commentors make some really good points.

Tatung’s TTAB-A12D Tablet PC

Specs:

• Four hour battery life
• 12.1-inch screen
• 1.5GHz Pentium M processor
• 512MB of DDR2 RAM
• 60GB hard drive
• 802.11a/b/g WiFi
• Two built-in speakers
• Biometric fingerprint scanner.

Engadget Article
Tatung Website

Need To Email A Large File(s)

YouSentIt.com is a free service that may be a good way to share large files without filling email boxes. The file you want to send gets stored on the YouSentIt servers for seven days. A hyperlink with a short message is sent to the recipients email box.