Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category


Weather Bonk

Sunday, January 21st, 2007

Weather BonkTod Maffin mentioned this on his blog sometime ago, and it’s too much fun to not pass on. Weather Bonk is a great mashup of Google Maps and The Weather Channel, not to mention a variety of other great utilities.

I use a combinations of widgets to get the current weather for Vancouver on my desktop, but the Route Weather is a pretty amazing tool for mapping out the forecast of your road trip. I also love the variety of webcams that you can locate with the map. The site seems to have a pretty good pulse on what is available for nearly every major city in North America.

Be careful. You could end up toying around with this site for hours.

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Filed under: Internet, Weather

iPhone is hot, but it doesn’t even exist yet

Sunday, January 21st, 2007

iPhone popup adIt has appeared to the world at MacWorld Expo, and I’ve watched the keynote to know that it’s freaking sweet. The fact is, you can’t buy one yet. That’s why I find this pop up ad incredibly interesting, even though the sucker seeped through Firefox. “Sign up now to win something that no one can get their hands on yet!” Sounds like… fun?

The iPhone is hot even before anyone can actually buy one. I even made Rebecca watch some of the keynote, and though it was a bit torturous for her, she’ll admit that what she saw was pretty cool. Who knows when we’ll be able to get our hands on one in Canada, but the hype is a bit over the top for me.

2 megapixel camera, music, movies, pictures, calendars, contacts, web browsers, and a phone. Now that’s not all that it has, but the biggest hard drive you can get on it is 8GB, not to mention battery life? I’m not totally sold on wanting one until the storage gets bigger and the power supply lasts longer.

I realize that my iPod mini and Nokia 6682 are completely lacking in comparison, but it can work for me right now. However, if it came down to getting a Blackberry or an iPhone for professional needs, I’d go with the Apple product.

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Filed under: Apple, Internet, Technology

Somebody leaked it onto the subnet

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007

24
I’m not sure how it’s happened, but the first four episodes to season six of 24 have been released into Internet-land. Yes, that is the upcoming season that has yet to officially premiere. I leave that up to you to track down where and how, but it is some pretty good television, not to mention the really great quality you can find it in.

Trust me, I’ve been scanning the headlines over the past few days to hear of Hollywood crying foul over it, but there hasn’t been anything. Clever marketing technique or rogue pirates on the loose? You decide.

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Filed under: Internet, Television

Five things you (probably) don’t know

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve gotten around to doing this, but Jeremy tagged me some time ago to do this “five things you didn’t know about me” thing that’s been going around. I’ve actually thought about this numerous times and come up with nothing good to plop down. I’m going to give myself about fifteen minutes to come up with the best things I can off the top of my head. Here goes nothing.

  • I was a band and choir geek in high school. I was in all the top choir groups, but not show choir. *shudder* I started out as a tenor, dropped down to the lower octaves of second bass, and rose up to a baritone/tenor when I figured out that rock stars don’t sing with a bass voice. Of course, this is all classical vocal training, but that goes a really long way, no matter what kind of singing you do in the rest of your life. In band, I didn’t apply my talents as much, but I played baritone, euphonium, fuglehorn, and valve trombone. I’m sure you don’t find this too surprising.
  • I have a series of dream jobs that I would like to have careers in if time and money were no object, not to mention talent for said position. List off the top of my head, but not limited to: astronomer, architect, carpenter, radio talk show host, painter, graphic designer, musician, UNIX programmer, writer, cinematographer, film director, actor, professional hockey player, professional baseball player, play-by-play sports announcer(hockey, baseball, or college football), interior decorator, plumber, forest ranger, guitar technician, roadie for a rock band, and broadcast engineer. I’ve already done the last one, but that is too much fun to not do again.
  • I lived in Japan for three months in 2000. Camp Adventure is a program that sends college students to U.S. military facilities to run day camps for children. I was at NAF Atsugi[wiki], located in between Yokohama and Tokyo. Camp counselor to fifteen kids by day, played throughout the backyard of Japan at night and on the weekends. Probably the best summer vacation I ever had.
  • I play bass guitar, and drop-D tuning is my weak spot. My dreams of success were set back when I slammed my left index finger in a car door about five years ago. It’s still tender when I run the frets and probably will be for the rest of my life because how poorly the bone healed at the tip of my finger. My bass is still in the states, so that means that I’m going to suck more than I did before when I get my hands on it again. I’ve only been in two “bands” in my life but never lived an even bigger plot to be a lead singer.
  • I have Gilbert’s Syndrome[wiki]. This might be a result or continuation of being jaundice at birth(of which I almost didn’t survive). This a major reason as to why I exercise through running and strength conditioning. It seems to keep the bilirubin levels in my body regulated. Otherwise, I start to really feel like crap.

Now I have to tag five more people? I’m not too sure who has and hasn’t been tagged yet, so please don’t rag on me if you’ve already been marked. I call on The Reverend Don Deeley, Yvonne, GZ Expat, Alanah, and J.J. Even though those last two are hockey bloggers, I’m curious about those things we don’t know about some of the biggest Canucks fans out there.

This didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would. However, nothing there is ever final or complete in story. For the sake of time, I tried to keep it brief as possible. I can get long winded about things if I’m not careful.

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Filed under: Blogging, Geeky, Internet

Art 2.0

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

This CNN article is particularly interesting to me because my sister is someone who is trying really hard to promote and sell her art in addition to her day job and being a single mom of two kids.

LONDON, England (Reuters) — Collector Charles Saatchi has launched a Web site for art students and a handful have already sold works online as the Internet begins to change the way the art world works.

With prices for contemporary art soaring, collectors say they have less time to travel to galleries and shows to see new works for themselves, while aspiring painters and sculptors find it hard to get noticed amid the pressure to find the next hot young stars.

For many, the Internet is the answer, offering low-cost access for thousands of painters, sculptors and buyers and, at the same time, providing a Myspace-style social networking site for artists the world over.[cnn]

Player by Elizabeth Bollwitt
Elizabeth Bollwitt: “Player”

My sister is a ways out from attaining extreme success with her endeavors on the web, but presence is important for sure. Beth took a hiatus from the world of art for a short time. In the last few years, my sister has gone to a variety of shows in the midwest. Painting is her true knack, but she can also do graphic design and wood carving. I can almost swear that some of her pottery projects from college are still floating around, but it has been a long while since I’ve see her do much in that realm.

Pointillism[wiki] is the style Beth specializes in. That might seem to be a painful process to some, but she has a real talent for it. Her inspiration comes from a variety of places. The collection has probably doubled, maybe tripled, in the last few years, and a print of her “Sunset Flower” sits on the wall in the living room of our apartment. The recent expansion of her original works has seen some incredible progression in the use of color and technique. “Player” has to be one of my favorites. At least when I first saw it, it really impressed me. I love the bold use of colors, and she has gone on to expand that concept in other paintings she has done since then.

Sunset Flower by Elizabeth Bollwitt
Elizabeth Bollwitt: “Sunset Flower”

Being an artist that offers themselves on the web is not as easy as it might seem, and I think my sister can speak to that quite clearly. Presence is the simple part. Gaining attention is the next big step, but actually achieving success is the golden ticket. Seeing the digital image won’t get people interested in buying as much as seeing the original up close will.

It’s comparable to when I saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”[wiki] for the first time. The reproduction that you’ve seen a thousand times before is like an over played song. It gets old, stale, and you don’t think twice the next time you hear it. However, with art, when you see the original painting, you get it. I had to be pulled away from that Van Gogh it because I couldn’t quit staring at it.

If you enjoy the samples of that you see in this post, then please visit my sister’s website, elizabethbollwitt.com.

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Filed under: Art, Family, Internet

Noticing some slight bugs in Firefox 2

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Firefox 2.0 Screen ShotIt seems that every time I launch Firefox 2.0 on my Powerbook, it never likes to load Google like a good browser should(click on the image to the left to see a screen shot). It takes the logo and positions it almost in the center of my screen rather than the center of the window. Usually resizing the window will solve this and everything goes back to normal. I’m making a post about this and then sending the link as feedback for Mozilla.

There are other issues creeping up with the latest release, but they seem to not be overly critical. They are worth reading up on because users are concerned about security problems, but Mozilla is saying that there is nothing threatening about any of the problems that are showing up. I would expect an update soon, but it’s interesting to note that they are hard at work on version 3.0.

Something else to pass on is this link that I got from BoingBoing about a series of tweaks that you can implement on Firefox. Granted that these are for the more geeky individuals, but it’s really not that hard to do. If those tweaks aren’t enough for you, check out the MozillaZine Wiki for a all sorts of geeky and nerdy stuff that you can do with Firefox.

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Filed under: Firefox, Geeky, Internet

Increase of traffic in the spam department

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

Has anyone noticed a massive increase of internet spam[wiki] in the last few days? In my email and the comments on my sites, the numbers have spiked quite a bit. Some of the stuff got through, but even those numbers have been trailing off over the past 24 hours. Think the filters and blockers are catching on to whatever it is that is going on. I’d really like to knock down these people’s doors and throw a few haymakers.

Update: Looks like I’m not the only one who noticed this. Akismet made this recent post on their blog regarding amounts of spam lately. This is a WordPress must of a plugin to run on your site, and they processed three million pieces of spam in one day last week.

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Filed under: Blogs, Internet, Website

Firefox 2.0 released today

Tuesday, October 24th, 2006

I haven’t had much time to really put Firefox 2 through the test, but it is installed and running on my Powerbook. The main reason that I really wanted to make this post is the inline spell checking that now comes in this version. This is the thing that I have been wanting for a long time and, I finally have it. Hallelujah!

Firefox 2 is the next generation release of the award-winning Firefox web browser from Mozilla.

These Release Notes cover what’s new, download and installation instructions, known issues and frequently asked questions for Firefox 2. Please read these notes and the bug filing instructions before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla.

Give us your feedback through this feedback form.

[mozilla]

After painless installation, I checked to see if the speed up tweaks that I posted about a while back held, and they were all there. I only have two extensions that didn’t want to play nice, but they seem to have been built into the new release. All the additional search engines that I have added are there as well.

For the most part, what I’ve been able to read about this release is that the internal overhaul has been more than the external. There is some noticeable changes, but it’s looks and feels the same for the most part. Then again, I’ve been using a skin that made it appear more like Safari, so that might have something to do with it. Oddly enough, that was one of the extensions that didn’t want to work with this version. The other one was a tabbed browsing extension.

Wow. I love this built-in inline spell checking. Oh how I have missed this.

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Filed under: Firefox, Internet

The vowels of the internet

Friday, October 13th, 2006

I’ve been going to the last few Metroblogging Vancouver meetups, and there are usually a lot of interesting conversations. Some of them, as you can probably imagine, stem into the realms of being slightly geeky.

For instance, the point was brought up that there has been a natural progression of using vowels as a prefix to a website domain, company, or product name. For the life of me, I’m not sure where the letter “A” fits into all of this, but “E” and “I” have been front and center for nearly two decades now. Email, iTunes, iPod, and so on. Keep going down the line and one starts to wonder about “O”, “U”, and (some times) “Y”. What’s the next, new, hot thing going to be? What way will these letters be used and abused?

Of course, how can you not talk about YouTube? Everyone is now that Google just picked it up for a pretty penny. Someone brought up the idea that it should have been “uTube” and not “YouTube”. This would have fit into that natural progression in the world of Web 2.0. I’m not sold on it, but the thought made for some good laughs.

However, utube.com does exist. Thing is, they don’t do anything with video.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Utube.com, a Web site owned by a supplier of used tubes and pipes, has been swamped with visitors confusing it with online video service YouTube Inc. and has been barely operational since Google Inc. said on Monday it would buy YouTube for $1.65 billion.

“I’m at a point now, all I want to do is to make the site work,” Ralph Girkins, owner of the site belonging to Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., told Reuters on Thursday.

“Today, it’s been up the longest it’s been up for a week — an hour and a half,” said Ohio-based Girkins.

utube.com is the sixth most popular U.S. manufacturing Web site, ahead of Whirlpool Corp., according to data provided by HitWise.

On Monday, Girkins told Reuters an intermediary who said he was acting on behalf of YouTube had offered $1 million to buy the Internet address, but he turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million.

A YouTube spokesman said it had not made an offer and had no plans to do so.

On Thursday, Girkins said he had received about 20 phone calls from people who offered to sell his site for him. He has not been in contact with Google or YouTube, he said. [reuters]

Now it could be that this guy was thinking way ahead when he registered this domain, but he's certainly sitting on a gold mine. I find it fascinating that there is nothing Web 2.0 to the site itself. It makes complete sense that people would think that when they hear people talking about YouTube, they would think "utube" when they sat down at a browser.

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Filed under: Business, Internet, News Item, Web 2.0, YouTube

There’s no smell or taste in Second Life

Thursday, October 12th, 2006

To be honest, I’ve never tried Second Life. I did think about it. Even got as far as downloading it for the Mac and installed it. For months it sat on my hard drive, and I finally deleted it.

Create an avatar, a new identity, and a whole other life in Second Life. It’s Sims meets MySpace meets social networking on steroids. That is to say, it’s yet another way for people to sit behind a terminal and communicate with each other from all over the world. Except in the real world, you just sit in front of your computer. In this virtual world, you walk around, teleport, go to parties, meet people, and whatever else some one dreams up. Yes, there is, of course, cybersex as well.

Ok, I don’t know everything that goes on in Second Life, but there is a lot out there to give me insight. When I first heard about it, I was curious and found the idea kinda cool. The fact that this really isn’t a game is where I started to rethink it. Podshow has its own island, Duran Duran is doing something in there, and now Sun Microsystems has joined in the party.

Sun Microsystems knows all four million Java developers worldwide can’t attend its popular JavaOne trade show, but it thinks it might have found the next best thing.

Tuesday, Sun became the first Fortune 500 company to hold an ‘in-world’ press conference to show off its new pavilion in Second Life, the popular 3D online world. Sun said it plans to invest in the Sun Pavilion as a place for developers to try out code, share ideas and receive training.

“Our problem is that every year our largest developer conference (JavaOne) attracts about 22,000 people and we get to meet with them face-to-face for a week,” said Sun’s chief researcher John Gage during the virtual event. He said Sun hopes to reach millions of Java developers in Second Life with training and other support features. [internetnews]

I’ve never been one to be overly concerned if I am missing the boat with all the cool kids, and this is no exception. Sun has done something a little more remarkable with this, but if you really want to get all that you can out of Second Life, then you have to give them your credit card. I guess I’m just the type of person who prefers going out into the real world rather than virtually walking out my front door.

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Filed under: Internet, News Item, Social Networking
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