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Showing posts from April, 2011

Pragpub - Arduino Edition

via pragprog.com I always enjoy reading the Pragpub e-magazine (I download the .mobi edition for my kindle). And this month has some great articles about the Arduino in it. Well worth a peek. If you haven't looked at this magazine series before it's probably time to look now. If you haven't heard of the Pragmatic Coder (and now the whole bookself website) It's definitely time to have a peek. I have quite a few books from this site waiting to be read at the moment.

Sausagefest prize

Here's the prize!

LOL

Analogue Interactive Neo Geo Consolized MVS - Engadget Galleries

via engadget.com Simply amazing. Sadly insanely expensive. The Neo Geo then as now, is solely for rich kids.

Munich SausageFest 2011

I have the trophy ordered now so we are all set for the Munich SausageFest competition this Sunday. It should be epic. I have some seriously heavy hitting mates but I reckon I could be in with a chance myself if I play tactically. I may have to suggest a rather large full English breakfast to the competition in the morning but only have continental myself.?

Google and Bing don't know Beeston

Both Google and Bing seem to produce bizarre results around where I live.? Google Maps seems to have an area called Chilworth which I have never heard of and Bing Maps seems to think Victoria Centre is in the centre of Beeston.

Attenborough Nature Reserve Photosynth

Photosynths I have been trying to make a collection of photosynth all based around Attenborough Nature reserve. It's actually harder than you think because Attenborough is always full of people getting in the way. I think I really need to go down about 7 in the morning!

Languages and Android

I am off to try and kill myself through alcohol poisoning next weekend in Munich. Should be fun. I studied German in schule (Ich habe studiert Deutsch im schule) but have not used or really?practised it since so I have been doing some last minute cramming.?One way I have been learning is by programming a command line German conversation tool. A very simple but fun experiment.? My next plan was to make myself a German to English dictionary. I needed a text file that had x amount of words in the English language and then their translations. I couldn't find that, but I did find a massive text file containing a serious chunk of the English dictionary (I can't confirm if it is completely comprehensive but needless to say it will suffice). My plan was to iterate through each word and hit the google translate api. From that, pick up the translation and then stick the pair in a nice little SqlCe database that I can access from a spare Windows Mobile device I have. I could then write a

ESA - Observing the Earth - Earth from Space: Dust and plankton - images

via esa.int Pretty cool!!!!

Dell Streak 7 Android tablet now on sale ? ?299 via Dell

via eurodroid.com This is actually quite a respectable price for the Dell Streak! At least it's a tablet with Android the right side of ?300.00. It just needs to be 10" and have Honeycomb on and it would be fairly cool at that price.

Custom Bamboo Macbook Cases

via silvaltd.com These are tasty cases. I would possibly consider getting something like this later in the year when I get my Macbook Pro. That's right. I AM GOING TO GET ONE. Athene came to me in a dream last night and gave me an ultimatum. Macbook Pro this year or else an eternity listening to Tinie Tempahs lyrics read to me as poems.

Thought for the day.

God inspired sticky notes. The devil inspired non-sticky sticky notes.

Rugged Androids

via engadget.com Motorola are looking at Rugged androids. It may prove an interesting upgrade from the world of Windows Mobile / Pocket PC. I certainly can't see much in the way of an upgrade path being laid out by Microsoft at the moment for enterprise handhelds. There is talk of Embedded Windows XP but I can't see the point of such a laughable overhead as Windows. I need the memory myself for enormous datasets! hoorah! I still think moving to Android is barking up the wrong tree really. The armies of Windows Mobile developers really just want a nice simple upgrade path, not to have to learn Java and the Android SDK. It's really annoying that we are still stuck with Visual Studio 2008 for example. Anyway, it's nice at least one company is thinking about the future of this billion pound industry!

Kyocera Echo - Dual Screen Madness

This one is pure asian madness. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McFCiY3O8iU?wmode=transparent] I do like the idea of the dual screens and the touchscreen quicks looks wicked. The battery life would kill me I expect. You can see a full review on Engadget. 10/10 for trying though. It's much more innovative than the beige that seems to be streaming forth from many of the handset manufacturers making Android phones at the moment. There are more HTC phones than you can shake a stick at but what differentiates them?

MinimalWall?- Perfect for my geek sheek desktop

via minimalwall.com Desktop backgrounds that are too cool for school. I like the idea. Personally I prefer a crazy action packed desktop of the battle for Endor, complete with Ewoks jumping into AT-STs'.

Soldering - Instruction Manual Comic

via mightyohm.com Worth a look if you need to brush up on your soldering!

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - Because what I really needed was a smartphone with even less battery life

via engadget.com Brilliant idea. I can see it now. I use my Xperia Play on the way to a day trip down in London. After a couple of hours the battery runs out. Supposed to meet friends that evening so I have to buy cheap pay as you go phone to put my sim in. I can't wait for the Xperia Play experience!

I Plan Websites - 404

via iplanwebsites.com Pretty cool 404 page

HTC Flyer - When you seriously have more money than sense.

via htc.com Want to pay a premium price for a tiny 7inch tablet? HTC apparently think you do. Prepare yourself for the Flyer. Complete with > ?600.00 price tag and complete lack of office productivity tools. Such a poor cousin to the iPad it's almost unreal. Please please please let a reasonably priced Android tablet with Office tools such as a presentation and word processing tool come out (Not just some crappy app that can amend word and excel documents).

BBC News - Amazon sells ad-subsidised Kindle e-book reader

via bbc.co.uk I would rather pay the ?15.00 to have no adverts I think!

Crazy Clients

NuGet has upset me.

How annoying, I thought I would give the code first EF stuff a go. So I go onto the package manager and get it only to be greeted by this foul message! ------       EFCodeFirst PACKAGE IS OBSOLETE     -------------- A supported go-live version of Code First is now available as part of the 'EntityFramework' package. The 'EntityFramework' package has been installed to your project.  Please install 'EntityFramework' directly in the future. Bah! Why let you download it. Anyway, the problem is easily solved anyway by getting the EntityFramework as it says in the error message.

Cartoons

My god, with this and the new Thundercats cartoon coming out, it looks like cartoons are back on the menu again.? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12968599 [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opB2f1BUvPk?wmode=transparent]

Arnie Videos

I have spent the whole afternoon making stupid videos. These are my two Arnie ones. Looks nothing like me!!!!! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an56OkEL_KQ?wmode=transparent] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Un7oNQ2s8?wmode=transparent]

Excel showing zeros as a blank cell.

I do this so seldom I always forget how to do it. Personally I really don't advise doing this as it's just a nasty thing to do and can cause an incorrect interpretation. Spreadsheets should endeavour to be easy on the eye but not at a cost of functionality. However when one is asked to do it by higher powers one must obey. Ignore idiots that fill every cell if stupid formulas like =if(A1 = 0,"") Just do as commanded on this article here.  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/display-or-hide-zero-values-HP010070461.aspx This is for 2007 - 2010. For 2003 the same thing is under Tools->Options... or something like that. I haven't used 2003 for years.

Karate - Hangetsu Kata

We begun learning  Hangetsu kata on Thursday night. I found it a very strange kata, especially the stances. The first part of the kata is supposed to be done slowly with emphasis on breathing. The moves and breathing make it feel like a very internal kata.  [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG6LkwkXnu0?wmode=transparent] Anyway, our Sensei says that we will continue with it Saturday morning so look forward to learning more about it. 

Underground off site constructed modular house - Futher Ideas

Thinking on the subject more there are obviously quite a lot of problems with the idea of underground houses. But all of these could be overcome. I did a couple more sketches on the idea and put them into a little video. ?I will now move onto my next idea! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9DypYixdWo?wmode=transparent]