Friday, March 24, 2006

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Skype on your mobile phone

EQO connects your Skype account to a mobile phone. When you call a member of your buddy list or another number through the EQO client, or someone calls you from Skype, EQO routes the call to your phone over your regular wireless voice service using SkypeOut. You can receive Skype calls from anywhere on your handset, without needing a highly advanced 3G mobile phone and without being connected to a high-speed wireless data network.



 
Cool Or What?


Via Darla Mack

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

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Cool tool: Boot and Nuke

I use BCWipe for deleting individual files and directories, but you should always wipe hard disks completely before giving away or selling a used computer.


The Darik's Boot and Nuke free boot floppy and CD does just that:



Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.


As the instructions says: Please clearly label your DBAN boot media because it is dangerous.


 

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

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AirScooter

I would love to learn to fly a helicopter but it costs way too much. The AirScooter is (almost) within reach as it costs the same as a low-end sports car at about $50.000. The great news is that it classifies as an "ultralight" plane so there is no need for an expensive pilots licenses to fly it. It is as simple to drive fly as a motorcycle and will be available for purchase later this year.




In man's quest for personal flight, people throughout history have wanted to experience the joy and thrill of moving freely above the ground, to hover or move at will (view History of Rotor Craft). People want to FLY, but opportunities are limited due to the cost and often complex regulations associated with general aviation not to mention the inconvenience of having to drive to and from an airport. Other flying opportunities (e.g. hang gliding, ultralight airplanes, powered parachutes and other forms) are attractive only to a limited audience. In today's mobile, recreationally oriented society many owners of ATV's, off-road motorcycles, PWC's, snowmobiles, boats, PPCs, ultralight aircraft and other recreational vehicles want to get off the ground. AirScooter is a new kind of VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) craft designed for personal enjoyment. It qualifies under ultralight FAR Part 103 for single person personal flight. Like the flying pods in Star Wars, the AirScooter scoots about with intended operation below 50 feet or so.


….
Built around a strong composite torque-box airframe, the overall height of the AirScooter is 11 feet with a width of 7 feet and a length of 12.5 feet (does not include rotor blade length). The 14 foot diameter rotors have extruded aluminum blades. Flight speed is estimated to range from hover up to 55 knots carrying approximately 350 total pounds of useful load while utilizing a 5 gallon fuel tank providing approximately two hours of flight time. Standard instrumentation includes digital readouts for fuel level, altitude and air speed conveniently located between the grips of the handlebar controls. These performance specifications are engineering estimates that are corresponding well with final phase engine testing that is currently taking place.



For more information; AirScooter Photo & Video gallery, FAQ

Sunday, March 19, 2006

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Disney popcorn machine from Ariete

We recently got this cute gadget made by Ariete:

It is an electrical popcorn machine that does not need oil or butter to make great tasting popcorn and the kids love to watch them pop. Turn it upside down when the popcorn is done and the cover becomes a handy container.


Coolissimo!

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Locost: build your own sports car for a few hundred euros

Do you love the looks of the Ariel Atom but cannot afford one? Join the Locost Car Club and build your very own sports car for a few hundred euros:



The Locost Car Club primarily exists to support those who are interested in the construction of, and ownership of cars built by embracing the principles and approaches to car building given in the book “Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250” by Ron Champion.




Happy building!

Friday, March 17, 2006

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Gadget: SkiThing

SkiThing makes it a easy to carry skis around. No more sore shoulders or accidents to innocent bystanders. The SkiThink snaps on to your ski boot and lets you carry the skis with minimal effort:



As simple to use as 1, 2, 3:



  1. Place the strap around your ski boot and tighten.

  2. Insert the bottoms of your skis into the SkiThing and turn skis so your bindings face forward, and start walking.

  3. When you get where you're going, remove your skis, snap the button inside SkiThing to collapse it, or remove and put in your pocket, and off you go!

Cool Or What?

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Cool tool: many virtual desktops with VirtuaWin

Virtual desktops are not as good as working with large screens or multiple monitors but they help. VirtuaWin is a free, fast and easy to use virtual desktop manager for Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/Win2k3:



Using a virtual desktop manager is a way to organize applications over several "virtual" desktops. For example if you use two virtual desktops you can put a webbrowser on desk 1 and by using a desktop manager "switch away" the webbrowser and it will seem like you have a new empty workspace (desk 2) to put another application/applications on. Virtual desktops are very common in the Unix community and once getting used to this, it is very hard to manage without it.


The taskbar is different for each virtual desktop which makes it quick to move between the different applications. I have used VirtuaWin for a long time and the following configuration works the best for me:



  • Dedicate different tasks to each desktop so you know where you to find what you are looking for. Organizing by tasks like “work“, “private“ etc works better for me than organizing by applications like “browser“, “email“, “word processing“.

  • I use the Windows Key + 1,2,3,4 to move to a specific desktop

  • I use the Windows Key + right/left to scroll between the windows

  • Disable the "mouse support". I am sure it is useful but it drives me crazy to see the desktop change when I get too close to the border of the screen

Main features:



  • Configurable key/mouse control

  • Small, fast and easy to use, "just the needed stuff(TM)" :)

  • Supports user defined icons

  • Can keep an active window on every desktop

  • Can set windows sticky to make them appear on all desktops

  • Configurable layout of virtual desktops, up to 9 desktops

  • Supports modules for additional features

  • Can save applications desktop belongings and restore them upon restart

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

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Samsung B600 with 10 megapixel camera

Is it a phone?


Or a camera?



It's both and TV as well! The Samsung B600 comes with a lot of other interesting features:



  • Camera: 10 megapixel with 3x optical zoom, 5x digital zoom, flash, auto-focus, 1/2000 shutter speed, and self-timer

  • DMB satellite TV reception

  • Bluetooth / PictBridge / Voice recognition

  • Bluetooth printing

  • Video Recording & Messaging (MPEG4 / H.264)

  • MP3/ AAC / AAC+ 

  • Dual speaker 

  • Document Viewer

  • TV out

Via engadget

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

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Cool Tool: BCWipe

I recently got a new external hard disk and gave my old one to a colleague. I made sure that all personal data was removed from it first using BCWipe. Deleting the files is not enough as it only removes the file from the file system "index". The files can easily be recovered by a recover utility. Formatting is better but not as good as wiping a disk. Wiping a file, or disk, writes over the data many times with "random" data to make it close to impossible recover the original data.


BCWipe (Windows , Unix) is a free tool that allows you to delete your data and make sure it cannot be recovered. It has several useful features:



  • Delete with wiping

  • Wipe free disk space

  • Wipe Swap File

  • Wipe Empty Directory Entries

  • Wipe File Slacks



BCWipe v.3 is a powerful set of utilities which complies with options to invoke either the US DoD 5200.28-STD standard or the Peter Gutmann wiping scheme. You can also create and use your own customized wiping scheme to wipe sensitive information from storage devices installed on your computer



Jetico also has a commercial product for encrypting data on the fly: BestCrypt. It creates a virtual disk and encrypts all contents on it. I have used it on NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 for storing sensitive data, but have moved to poSecrets as it allows me to share my “secrets“ between my Pocket PC and my laptop.

Monday, March 6, 2006

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Free download: Charlie Chaplin's - The Kid

Archive.org does it again and makes another great movie available for download. This time it's the movie that was made Charlie Chaplin a legend: The Kid  (more info about the movie on IMDB)


The movie is available in many formats:  64Kb MPEG4, 256Kb MPEG4, MPEG1 (445MB), MPEG2 (2.3GB)

Saturday, March 4, 2006

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Compact 1TB USB 2.0 Hard Drive by LaCie

LaCie Big Disk 1TB




The most powerful Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hard drive in a portable 5.25" 1U form factor, the LaCie Big Disk is designed for low-cost storage expansion and is ideal for backing up several workstations with enormous capacities up to 1TB. With USB universal connectivity and no software to configure, this plug & play drive delivers high performance with maximum convenience. Easily share and exchange among multiple workstations for archiving without clogging the network. Its durable d2 body has been uniquely designed to naturally dissipate heat (500GB and 600GB drives are fanless) and its “smart fan” technology (in the 1TB drive) allows for the quietest possible operation.

Friday, March 3, 2006

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Get a free USB thumb drive from Microsoft

Getting a free USB thumb drive has never been this easy: go to the Microsoft "Mystery Solved" site, click the Valuable Information link and answer the simple questions



Cool Or What?


Via The Road to Know Where

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Cool Tool: Shrinkster

Shrinkster is an online tool that creates short links from long ones. Long and hard to read urls that break in mails can be compressed to a short and unique url that never expires. Click the short link and you are automatically redirected to the original link.


TinyUrl offers the same basic features, but Shrinkster adds one great feature: you can track URL usage

Thursday, March 2, 2006

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Axia A308: the World's smallest Windows phone?

Axia A308, the world’s smallest PDA Phone on Microsoft® Windows® Mobile 5, has with some impressive features considering its size:



Connectivity:
Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Integrated GSM/GPRS/EDGE
Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b compliant)
Bluetooth (1.2 compliant, Class 2 transmit power)
IrDA


Size:
Dimensions: 20.8 (D) X 48.8 (W) X 113.3 (L) mm
Weight: 128 g


Camera:
1.3 MegaPixel Fixed focus


Via The Registry