I, PADD

Apple should have just called their new tablet the PADD.

Google Moble: Local Search

Google Mobile's new Local Search looks extremely useful to those of us with smartphones. Check it out.

Dragon*Con 2009: Post 2

No, this post is not the one where I finally put up our Dragon*Con photos. Instead, I thought I'd point out an amusing shot of Felicia Day that was taken at the con. Sadly we didn't see this live, but I'm quite sure that we missed it by less than 5 minutes; I believe this photo was taken immediately after the Guild panel, and "Vork"---along with doppelgangers for all the Knights of Good---was sitting right behind us.

WoW. Just WoW.

World of Warcraft is headed to the big screen, and the adaption will be directed by Sam Raimi. Gaming geeks everywhere will be thrilled by the news, I'm sure. I just hope Guild mistress Felicia Day can wrangle herself a role.

Google Chrome OS

Google announced last night that it will release a lightweight, open-source operating system called Chrome OS. The OS is Linux-based and clearly aimed at cloud computing and web applications; it's primary function will be to run the Chrome browser, and most apps will run inside the browser. Chrome OS will begin appearing on netbooks in late 2010; then it will move to full-function laptops and desktops.

Given Google's size and popularity, this news could have enormous ramifications.

Google Calendar on the iPhone

Awesome.  This is exactly what I need.

I Call it MiPhone

So far, my iPhone, is, as our leet-speaking friends would say, is teh awesome.  I plan to post more extensively---and understandably---after a another week or so of using it.

Memristors: Nobel Material

Mark my words:  Memristors will win the Nobel Prize in Physics someday.  These devices are interesting from a scientific perspective because they represent a fourth circuit element (in addition to resistors, capacitors, and inductors) that was predicted 37 years ago. From a practical standpoint, they may make it possible to replace some of the transistors in computer chips in a several-to-one ratio, resulting in smaller chips for a given functionality or more functionality for a given chip size. This is a Huge Deal. Additionally, since synapses behave a bit like memristors, memristors may be used to implement neural networks.

Intrepid Ibex

I just installed Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex, onto my laptop last night. The new OS seems to be working well. It's even fixed a sound problem I had with 8.4, so I'm quite pleased with it.

A Bunch of Rocks

I've cut down, recently, on the frequency of posts that are essential just look-at-this links to elswhere on the interwebs.  Today's xkcd, however, is so thought-provoking that it simply demands I point it out. 

Does this Mean the Galactica Runs on the Mac OS?

It seems that humorist, author, corespondant, and personified PC John Hodgeman will be apper in one of the episodes of Battlestar Galactica to be broadcast in 2009.  I'll certianly keep and eye out for him

Internet Series Review: The Guild, Season 1

(This review contains no significant spoilers.)

Alison and recently discovered the internet series The Guild, and we promptly watched its entire run.  Here's my review:

The Setup

The series was created by Felicia Day* based on her own experiences playing MMORPGs, and it follows addicted gamer Codex (Day) as her online life crosses over into her real life.  Season 1 consists of 10 episodes of about 3 to 6 minutes each.  Season 2 was supposed to hit the intertubes in September or October, so I'm unsure what its status is. 

What I Liked

• All the characters are distinct, with unique personalities.  I particularly enjoyed Codex, Zaboo, and Vork.
• The acting is sometimes pretty strong, and I especially enjoyed the actors filling the 3 roles I just mentioned.
• The script is fairly amusing, most of the time.

What I Disliked

• The acting is sometimes fairly weak, giving me the impression that I was watching actors reading lines, rather than characters saying what they felt.
• The dialog can be a little stilted and artificial-sounding at times.

Conclusion

Overall, I give the first season of The Guild 7.0 out of 10.  If I were a MMORPGer, I'd probably give it a full point more.  I'm looking forward to seeing the second season, if it ever materializes.

* Day may be familiar to the Whedonites in the audience as Vi, a potential slayer from Buffy's final season, and as Penny, the laundromat girl, from Dr. Horrible.

Review: Yubnub

I'm still using Google's Chrome browser, even though it's just a beta release. In fact, I've added Yubnub, the "command line for the internet," to it. Here's my review of that little piece of software.

The Setup

Once installed, Yubnub lets you easily search different databases and search engines. For example, typing "gim miata" does a Google Image search for Miatas, and "wp wankel engine" does a Wikipedia search for Wankel engines. Yubnub does much more, too. It can use it as a reverse dictionary; look up a word given its definition. It can generate random numbers. It can break up strings and perform Boolean operations. If all that isn't enough, you can create your own command.

What I Like

• It really is like a command line for the internet.

What I Don't Like

• What's not to like?
  

Conclusion

Overall, I give Yubnub 9.0 out of 10. It's terribly useful and entirely free.

Next Up, Manganese

I don't really follow the information-technology news like I should, but even I have heard about Google's release of their open-source browser, Chrome.  I downloaded and installed the beta version of Chrome, and I find that it has some nice features, although I'm sure I'm not exploiting them all.  The speedy launch is perhaps my favorite feature, although I also enjoy how the tabs are independent processes as well as all the info displayed when you open a new tab.  I encorage you, gentle reader, to check it out. 

Fiesty Fawn

I've decided to listen to my own advise. After I encouraged everyone to run out and install the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, version 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon), on their computers, it occurred to me that I should try Ubuntu out on my schmancy laptop. I didn't install 7.10, though. After trying out the live CD, I discovered the Gusty didn't seem to support all the hardware on my quite new machine. So, I chose to give the Ubuntu community some time to develop that support, and I installed version 7.04 (Fiesty Fawn) in a dual-boot setup with Windows XP.

Fiesty supports all my hardware. In fact, it automatically detected and installed another mouse I happened to plug into the machine, while XP complains. Fiesty also boots noticeably faster. Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager also makes it easy to find and install new software; it's a lot easier than doing the same thing in Windows, actually.

What about usability, you ask? For most of what I do with this machine---web surf and edit documents---Ubuntu works well, with one significant caveat. The caveat comes from the interweb end. As you know, a significant amount of the video content on the intertubes is in Windows Media or QuickTime formats, and those are not natively supported by Linux. There are allegedly workarounds out there, but I haven't put in the effort to make them work, and find the situation quite annoying. Other than that issue, Fiesty is quite satisfactory. The rest of the web appears as it should, and OpenOffice.org, the document editor seems to work pretty well. It claims to read and write Microsoft Office formats, like .DOC and .PPT, but, to be honest with you, I haven't tried opening the same files with both MS and OO.o yet. I'll have to do that later.

One feature of Linux that I wasn't expecting: I can read image and other files from my Windows partition. Neat.

Anyhoo, I encourage you to give Fiesty or Gusty a try. Just be sure to test it out with the live CD before installing onto the hard drive.

Gusty Gibbon Drops

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) was released on Thursday. Wired has a review of it here. They find it to be very easy to install, configure, and run. I'm building a web server around 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) at home, and I've been quite pleased with it. If you are looking for an inexpensive and easy-to-use alternative to Windows or Mac OS, I encourage you to check out this latest version.

A Fabulous Invention

No, Virginia, Chore Wars isn't just a Penny Arcade gag.

Eek, a Mouse!

Is your computer mouse too ordinary? Would you like to shake up your web-surfing experience? Do you feel the need to impress your officemate with cooler versions of ordinary office equipment? If so, and if you fancy yourself a bit of an electronics hacker, you may be interested in these two mouse-hacking projects I found through the MAKE Magazine blog:

• The Bug, a steampunk mouse.
• A mouse covered with an actual mouse pelt.
  

By the way, don't forget to acquire Das Keyboard to go with your new point-and-click device.

The Hook, The Line, And The Sinker

I think the latest Penny Arcade comic was written about Tom. Well, except for the being clean part.

1 Down, 1 to Go

Well, tonight I took the final exam in my Java class. Now I just need to give a talk on production of polarization-entangled photon pairs by four-wave mixing in optical fiber---a subject I know very little about---and I'll be done with both my classes. Remind me, why did I want to go back to school?