Dominic Finn

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.

Here's the prize!

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

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.?

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=43d31cc5-4804-407a-9000-7e59ad819d3d This one was a bit of a failure really. I should have taken more photos. Back to the drawing board.

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.

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!

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

via esa.int Pretty cool!!!!

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.

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.

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

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!

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?

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'.

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

via youtube.com I really like the look of the new HTC Sensation. My next upgrade perhaps?

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!

via iplanwebsites.com Pretty cool 404 page

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).

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

http://ytai-mer.blogspot.com/2011/04/meet-ioio-io-for-android.html

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.

This video is very disturbing. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J71XWkh80nc?wmode=transparent]

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]

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]

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.

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. 

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]